Men make houses, men make homes

Men make Houses, women make homes

Traditionally, men built or bought the houses. A girl born in the 19th century had little chance of evading the role that was considered her destiny - to marry young, stay home and raise a family. That is what echoes in my head when I hear this sentence. However, things have changed since 1850.

We’ve seen a lot of progress towards equality during the 20th century. Voting rights were given to women in a lot of countries during this century:

- 1920: United States

- 1944: France

- 1971: Switzerland

These are just a few examples of all the progress that has been made during this century. Today, things are still going very fast. With the internet, awareness is spreading like wildfire. But will we ever reach perfect equality?

In France, only 12% of the people working in the construction industry in 2015 were women. Which makes the first half of this proverb 78% true. This still good news, because there were only 8% in 2000. The second half also still makes sense today. Most often, the woman stops her professional activity to take care of a new-born child. We can observe the literal meaning of this proverb in real life, but many people around the world want to make it change.

I don’t think that this sentence should still be used nowadays. Making both a house and a home is about being a family. Do you really call it home if you have no one to live in with? A lot of progress has been made towards equality, and there’s certainly much more to do. That’s also a very binary vision, some people don’t identify themselves as men or women.

In conclusion, I think that this proverb aged like milk.

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